


the loneliest thing in the shape of a fist (is my petrified heart, still pounding)

by steepedinwords



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crying, F/M, Ray Molina is a Good Dad, telling secrets in the dark, working title: crying about it.jpg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27018802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steepedinwords/pseuds/steepedinwords
Summary: After the disastrous end to their performance at the coffee bar, Luke waits up to talk to Julie.“Luke slides down against the wall till he’s sitting on the floor, rests his hands on his knees. He can be here to catch Julie once the storm’s over, at least.”
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 359





	the loneliest thing in the shape of a fist (is my petrified heart, still pounding)

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for a couple of swears. Title is from Lights, as usual (“Portal”).
> 
> I think this might have the most dialogue out of anything I've ever written.

_ “Julie. It’s time to go.” _

Luke can’t stop hearing the words, playing over and over in his head like a scratched CD that skips to the worst part of a song on repeat. Julie’s dad normally sounds so nice, so easygoing, but the sternness in his voice when he called Julie away had pulled Luke back to all the arguments with his own parents. They’d always started off like that: stern, expecting to be obeyed, always quiet at first until it wasn’t. They always ended in shouting, storming out, and the widening of the rift between him and Mom, with Dad trying to patch up the pieces in quiet desperation. He’s seen over the last few weeks how much Julie and her dad love each other, their easy affection, the way Ray gives her space and love and support. The thought of a wedge driven into that relationship makes his heart hurt. 

He sits on the couch with Alex, watching Carlos wave his ghost detector thing around. Reggie’s antics don’t distract him from the refrain pounding over and over in his head.  _ Time to go, time to go. _ I got her in trouble, I made her do this, it’s my fault, it’s my fault.

Reggie means well, but maybe it’s not the time for a little creative haunting, and by the time Tía Victoria flees the room screaming, pulling a thrilled Carlos after her, the tension in Luke’s body feels close to snapping. Reggie runs out of the room, preemptively fleeing Julie’s wrath; Alex follows, and Luke’s close on their heels. Outside, the night is chilly and damp. A breeze carries the smell of flowers from the trees by the walk, and the sound of low voices from where Julie and Ray are standing by the studio door. They look tense and uncomfortable, and Luke can’t stand it any more. He can’t watch the implosion he’s sure is going to happen, so he turns and runs, just like he always has.

Carlos is back in the living room trying to video stuff again, talking excitedly to his tablet or whatever that tiny computer is called. Luke takes the stairs two at a time; the hallway outside Julie’s room is quiet and dark, except for the light she left on in her bedroom and quiet music playing from somewhere inside. Leave the light on, close the door, leave some music playing so the adults think you’re still there - she knows the tricks. He doesn’t think she’s done much sneaking out, but that’s just Julie. She's so smart.

(He’d stuck around long enough in the yard to make sure Julie had gotten down the trellis under her window safely. He’d had an upstairs bedroom once, too, and he took more than one fall sneaking out. She should at least have someone to catch her if she falls.)

Luke slides down against the wall till he’s sitting on the floor, rests his hands on his knees. He can be here to catch Julie once the storm’s over, at least.

The front door opens and closes. There’s the scuffle of socked feet sliding in from the living room, Carlos’ excited chattering coming towards the door, Ray’s quiet voice answering, reassuring. Julie says something, in her “I am absolutely lying, please don’t call my bluff” voice. Carlos protesting, trailing off into a murmur. But no raised voices, no arguing. Maybe it’s over with already.

The stairs creak and Luke looks up to see Julie climb the top step and turn towards him. Her face lights up in surprise as he scrambles to his feet. She looks tired, but not upset, he thinks; he hasn’t known her for that long, but she wears all her emotions on her face, the same way people tell him he does. It’s astonishing she ever manages to get away with lying.

(She’s never _had_ to get away with lying.)

“Are you okay?” he whispers. It’s not like anyone can hear him but Julie, but the sneaking around, the tension in the air - it’s bringing him back to all the times he ended the night slinking back to his own room after a blowout with Mom. He feels bruised.

“I’m fine,” Julie whispers back. She tugs her backpack higher on one shoulder. “You didn’t have to wait up for me, Luke.”

“I - I wanted to.” He swallows. “Did you - are you in trouble with your dad?”

“Not out here,” she says. “C’mon.” She pushes open her door and Luke follows her inside. It closes behind them and they’re alone in the quiet little away-from-the-world space of her bedroom. Julie tosses her backpack next to her desk chair and turns out the overhead light, leaving just the strings of fairy lights on. At Luke’s questioning look, she shakes her head. “Dad thinks I went to bed - we gotta be quiet.”

The fairy lights glow against the pinks and reds of the fabric draped over the walls. Luke really likes Julie’s room; it feels cosy and lived-in, piles of clothes scattered over her bed and books stacked haphazardly on the desk and floor, photos and little knickknacks scattered over every surface like tiny stories. It’s fascinating, like if you could just look at everything enough, you’d know a lot more about the stories that make up Julie. He wants to know them all.

She drops to sit cross-legged on the rug next to her bookshelf, beckoning him to join her. Luke follows suit, feeling clumsy and tired. The adrenaline of their performance has drained away faster than usual, taking his energy with it. He feels half-dead, and wants to laugh at the thought.

Julie tilts her head, curly ponytail falling over her shoulder, warm brown eyes regarding him with uncomfortable clarity. She doesn’t know his history, can’t know why he’s so worried about this, but she’s being really nice about it. He’s probably acting weird. Shit, he’s acting weird and he needs to say something, break the silence that’s settled over both of them, because silence feels too much like suffocating and keeping secrets, and he’s had so much of that.

Luke takes a steadying breath - he doesn’t need to, but habit is hard to kick and it helps him feel braver. “Julie, I’m so sorry. I - I should have never told you to sneak out, I got you in trouble.”

She looks at him, a little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “That’s the second time today you’re apologising,” she teases. “Kind of a record, huh?”

He doesn’t know what to say but, “I’m sorry,” again. She shakes her head. “I made the choice to sneak out. I’m sorry too. If I hadn’t messed up this morning, I wouldn’t have had to sneak out, and I wouldn’t have gotten caught. It’s my fault we didn’t get to talk to that manager lady.”

Luke’s shaking his head too, before she can finish. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault, Julie. We screwed up first, last night.” God, this is a mess. Dominoes falling into each other ever since yesterday when they decided to go after Bobby. It started with them.

“Are you - was your dad really mad?” He digs his fingers into the thick rug under them, bitten fingernails catching in the pile. Julie reaches for him, stops with her hands hovering over his, not quite touching. “Luke.” Her voice is very gentle, and he suddenly feels tears prickling his eyes. He’s not gonna cry. This is about Julie, not his own stupid shit. 

“Don’t worry, Dad’s fine,” she reassures him. “He wasn’t happy, but we talked it out, and he’s okay. I’m not in any more trouble.” Her eyes shimmer with tears of her own, and she blinks rapidly. “He’s - he asked if he could meet you guys, actually. To thank you.”

Luke’s gaping, there’s not another word for it. “Wow. That was it?”

“Well, I had to promise to tell him when we have gigs, and make sure school doesn’t suffer,” Julie says. She pulls one of the sparkly pins from her hair, playing with it between her fingers, a little smile on her face. “He’s just… Dad’s the best, honestly. I wish I could tell him about you guys for real, though. I’ve never kept a secret this big from him before.”

Luke isn’t sure if she’s really keeping the secret as well as she thinks, honestly. Julie really doesn’t have a poker face at all. 

“You’re the one who knows him best,” he says, and then, trying to lighten the mood a bit: “Except maybe Reggie.”

Julie rolls her eyes, taking the out he’s offering. “ _ Reggie _ . How far off would I be if I guessed he was the one riling up my tía?” There’s an exasperated little smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth, and Luke has the thought out of nowhere that he wants to kiss it, and  _ that _ \- well, that thought can get kicked back into the corner of his mind till he has more time to think about it, because this is  _ Julie _ , and he wants to be careful, not to mess up this precious thing between them, because her friendship’s worth a lot more than just kissing to him. 

“Yeah, but… he  _ was _ trying to get her to take Carlos seriously. For what that’s worth.” 

Julie laughs. The sparkling pin in her hand catches the light, shining like a star. “Well, I guess he did succeed in that. But I think Dad calmed her down, he was on the phone with her when I came upstairs. She won’t come back in the house.”

Luke ducks his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Reggie does what he wants,” Julie says fondly. “And Dad’s good at talking my aunt down.” She looks thoughtful, and Luke wonders where her mind is going. Back to being sad about keeping secrets from Ray?

“I’m glad you’ve got a good dad,” he blurts before he thinks, and immediately regrets it, because he’d been cool being distracted from thinking about his own parents for a while. But now he  _ is  _ thinking about them again, and the broken CD in his brain is going back to the fractures in that relationship, the pain, the way things between him and Mom and Dad will always just be shattered. Because that’s what happens when you’re seventeen and dumb, and you think you’ll have all the time to figure out your issues, you think you’re invincible, and then it turns out you’re not.

“I’m sorry if you didn’t,” Julie says, very gently, and Luke blinks back the stupid tears again. He finds himself telling her about his family. How they’d supported him at first, but then it all added up and the support eroded, turned into worry. Every missed class, every tabloid scandal about a rock musician, every late night had made it worse. How worry for his safety, his future, had turned to control, to regret, to anger when he didn’t want to listen. How Dad tried to mediate between him and Mom, but always came down on Mom’s side in the end. How much he’d felt like they’d never understand him. How much fighting with them had hurt. How he’d felt like they’d let him down.

“I just wanted them to see what music meant to me,” he says, sniffling. “I thought if I could show them one day, they’d see  _ me _ , maybe they’d actually listen. But I never got the chance, and - and now when I go back there, all I can see is how much I hurt them too.”

Julie’s eyes are full of tears too. They’re both tired and running on fumes, he thinks, after everything that’s happened the last few days. 

“I don’t want to do that to you,” he finishes, swallowing hard, and meets Julie’s eyes. The song they sang together tonight - he meant it like a promise to always have her back.  _ I got a spark in me, and you’re a part of me, now till eternity _ . Or at least as long as he’s got. He almost wasted this second chance. He won’t mess that up again.

“Did you ever talk to them again?” Julie asks, wiping a tear off her nose. They’re still whispering. Telling secrets in the dark. Luke looks down, fingers knotting together in his lap till the knuckles turn white, thinking about all the times he nearly managed to go back. To knock on the door, tell them he was sorry, tell them he missed them every day. He wants to feel Dad’s arms around him, Mom kissing his forehead to say goodnight like she’d still done most nights before he ran away.

“No,” he says, choking on a sob. “I - I didn’t dare.”

“I wish I could hug you,” Julie says, her own voice choky. She’s still got the sparkling pin between her fingers; she holds it out, and Luke grabs the other end, a tiny lifeline. She gives him a watery smile, and he wipes the tears off his face.

“My mom’s name is Emily,” he tells her, and watches her expression change, understanding. “Yeah. That song was about her.”

“Luke.” Julie’s eyes are so sad. “I’m sorry for teasing you about it.”

“It’s okay.” And it is. She couldn’t have known, and besides, Luke went through her songs too - this had just been her getting him back, playful teasing. She didn’t mean it.

He pulls the song out of his pocket, where he’s been carrying it around since yesterday, ripped out of his notebook as if keeping it on him will keep it safe, stop anyone from stealing things that are precious to him again. He’s thought of leaving it at his parents’ house a few times since they got ghosted. He’s never dared. 

Julie takes the creased piece of paper from him, unfolding it gently, eyes scanning the messy lines in ballpoint pen, the ink smeary in places where he’d cried on it. They’ve worked on songwriting together enough that she has practice reading his handwriting, but it still takes a few minutes for her to puzzle through it. When she looks up, there are more tears rolling down her cheeks, and Luke feels guilty for making her cry yet again.

“It’s beautiful, Luke. She’d have loved it.” Julie carefully folds the paper again, holds it back towards him. She hesitates, then suggests, “Trevor didn’t steal this one. We could… we could record it, maybe.” 

“We almost did, back… before.” Luke sniffles again. “We were working on it, we were gonna go play it for my parents sometime, or record it and I’d bring them a copy - we hadn’t figured it out yet. I thought we had time.” 

“Want me to look at adding some piano?” Julie asks, and he thinks about it. Maybe they can’t play the song for his mom now, not without freaking her out. But maybe playing it again, just with the band, would help him figure out how he’s supposed to be feeling about all of this. He nods. “Yeah, okay.”

His music is safe in Julie’s hands.

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed the idea of holding both ends of something as a substitute ghost hug from one of SquirrelNo2’s amazing JATP fics, which y'all should go check out.


End file.
